1920s Slingerland MayBell Resonator Tenor Banjo

A somewhat-fresh ukulele player owns this instrument and while it'd had a number of random repairs in the past (including an entire refinish job), it really needed some love on the setup-side of things to make it a proper player.

Said love included a fret level/dress, side dots install, new Gotoh 4:1 geared pegs at the headstock, a hidden bolt-attachment for the neck-to-rim joint (as the neck brace was not really hacking it entirely), and a good setup with a nice, tall bridge. The owner had it strung-up like a low-G uke but with steel strings, though the gauges it came with were pretty severe. I knocked them down to 20w, 14, 11, 9 and that gives it a much more "uke-y" tension and ease-of-play.

I really like this voicing for these earlier, short-scale tenor banjos. The close tuning makes use of the slightly-chunkier sound they have and the range is comparable to the top 3 strings of normal CGDA tenor tuning so you get much of the vague idea of a tenor banjo when used in ensemble play -- including its top-end chime -- but with a fingering more-suited to uke players (there are more of those than "regular" tenor players).

The instrument itself was sold via Slingerland under their MayBell brand (a stamp is still half-extant on the back of the headstock), and I think that most of these were made by Regal for Slingerland, though I don't have conclusive proof of that.

Specs are: 20 7/8" scale, 10 7/8" diameter rim, 3" side depth, 1 3/16" nut width, 15/16" string spacing at the nut, 1 7/16" spacing at the bridge, and 1/16" action at the 12th fret. The level/dress job removed any effective relief in the neck and the neck itself has a flat fretboard and medium C/V back profile.

Woods are: 3-piece figured-maple neck, ebonized-maple fretboard, multi-ply maple rim with birdseye veneer rim exterior and resonator back. The hardware seems to be mostly-original, too.

There should be a thin, ebonized-maple headstock veneer on this. It must've disintegrated (as is often the case) and the remains removed during the old refinish job.

The 4:1 tuners will make a world of difference for the owner of this instrument. Struggling with friction pegs is a huge chore.